Launa T. Thompson, 52

Radio executive known for integrity and drive

June 22, 2004|By Barbara Sherlock, Tribune staff reporter.

Launa T. Thompson will be remembered for her virtue, colleagues said, even more than for her success as a broadcast sales professional.

"Launa had immense integrity and was highly respected by the people she worked with and her clients, because they knew she would always do the right thing," said John Gehron, regional vice president of Clear Channel Radio.

Mrs. Thompson was named by Gehron last November to be station manager of Clear Channel's two urban stations, WGCI-FM and WVAZ-FM, and its gospel station, WGRB-AM.

She also continued to be general sales manager for the stations, a position she had held since 1996 as she led a sales effort that earned WGCI accolades in 1999 as the No. 1 station in Chicago for generating advertising sales revenue.

Recently listed by the management and marketing magazine Radio Ink as one of the most influential African-Americans in radio, Mrs. Thompson, 52, died Sunday, June 20, after a brief illness in West Suburban Hospital Medical Center in Oak Park.

"She was an outstanding woman, professionally and personally," Gehron said. "She spent a great deal of time on the personal aspects of getting things done, whatever the individual [employee] needed to get it finished. She was a manager that got results, but at the same time the employees participated and benefited."

With a bachelor's degree in sociology and vocational rehabilitation from Wilberforce University in Ohio and a master's degree in guidance and counseling from the University of Cincinnati, Mrs. Thompson worked for several years as a social worker in Chicago before deciding in 1978 to try sales.

After selling credit information services to Fortune 500 companies for Dun & Bradstreet in Glen Ellyn for about two years, she took an entry-level sales position at WGCI in 1980 and soon earned a reputation as a strong performer in billing and generating accounts.

In 1985, she left the station and worked briefly as a newspaper marketing manager for Gannett Corp. before becoming a local sales manager for WBBM-FM. A year later, she and her husband, Abe, a broadcaster, moved to Michigan to work as a team for a radio station in Southfield.

When that station was sold months later, she returned to WBBM as a national sales manager. Before rejoining in WGCI in 1994 as a national account coordinator, she had stints with WFYR radio and Black Entertainment Television.

She has received recognition for her work, including the Kizzy Image and Achievement Award from the Black Women's Hall of Fame Foundation and honors from Radio & Records and the Broadcast Advertising Club of Chicago.

"My wife was a great person who will live in our hearts forever," her husband said.

Her mother, Daisy Gaines, described her as "the most wonderful, caring, loving, compassionate and dedicated daughter who was a wonderful wife, awesome mother and friend."

She also is survived by her son, Phoenix.

Visitation will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday in Apostolic Church of God, 6320 S. Dorchester Ave., Chicago, followed by a 4 p.m. service in the church.